Tag: what will I pay to marry my thai girlfriend in Thailand

Many western men comment on how jealous their Thai girlfriends and Thai wives can be.

So let me share with you some insight’s on what seems like jealousy or paranoia on the part of Thai women is embedded deep in Thai culture.

Firstly I don’t want you to think that this is just an attack on Thai men because really they are only just a victim to years of Thai culture as well so we must be careful not to lay blame in only one place . To Thai men I ask you to consider if the shoe was on the other foot how would you feel..really try to put yourself in the same position as what I am about to tell you.

The simple fact is that Thai culture and Thai society has allowed the behavior of Thai men to have more than one wife.

Even though today it is frowned upon and the cause of such a high percentage of relationship and marital problems between Thai men and Thai women it still happens but it is not just as straight forward as a man being allowed to have two wives, it is a little more complicated than that.

One of the issues in Thailand is that it is not really neccessary to get a registered marriage, very often the traditional Thai wedding ceremony performed in front of your family and social circle is enough to say you are married. Basically in the eyes of everyone you are married.

For a marriage to be legal in Thailand it must be registered at a District office and a marriage certificate issued. Many Thai men do not like to sign these papers for one reason or another, many feel it is a waste of time and cannot be bothered. Also the parents of both parties are not able to insist upon it and so it goes unregistered.

This very often is the case in a first marriage when the couple are very young with love stars in their eyes. They will only have a traditional Thai wedding ceremony and not bother with registration at a district office. Over the years the wife will do many things to support her husband and family helping him with business and all sorts of things and then one day the man will take a mistress/girlfriend and this is where the problems begin.

They may well have been married for 10 years or even more but there is no legal document to say so. But when the new Thai girlfriend gets her claws into the man very often he will feel pressured to marry her and get it registered and she then has all the rights in the eyes of the law leaving the primary Thai wife with little rights to anything. I have seen many court cases and heard many stories of this over the years.

Of course this sort of thing only really happens in the larger Cities in Thailand where there is property and assets at stake.

This is just one issue, because here is another problem.

In the more affluent Thai society it is all too common for many Thai men to take a girlfriend even though they are married. If they can afford it they will keep this going for years happily supporting both. One of the things in Thailand is the wearing of rings is not so readily practiced like the West and so it is often difficult to tell if someone is married or not.

‘Quite often when you see an older Thai man with a younger Thai woman it is very likely his Thai girlfriend and not his Thai wife’

In contrast though, there is a true story of a man ( Tekgor) who lives on the outskirts of Bangkok who has 7 wives and 22 children they all live together quite happily. He was interviewed on Television one time and was asked how he could keep such harmony in his household with 7 wives and 22 children.

So this leads me to the point of why Thai women can often seem paranoid or over jealous

When you put yourself in this situation as I mentioned it is easy to understand why. I do not blame men because it is Thai culture and Thai marriage law that allows this to occur and until something is done about it then it will continue.

Although this might seem like a negative perspective it is a fact of Thai culture and if you are a western man then I feel it will help give you a little more understanding of your Thai girlfriend or Thai wife if sometimes she has difficulty in believing you are monogamous. Monogamy is in fact one of the reasons Thai women have become interested in Western men as it is portrayed that Western men place much more value on being a ‘one woman man”.

If you are thinking about making your Thai girlfriend your Thai wife then here are some interesting facts for you to consider.

I have been writing a guest column called “Angella Talks” for my friends Steve and Golf at Thailand Musings and recently I began a post about divorce between Thai women and Farang men and so I thought I would add some information about that subject here as well because I feel it is an important and interesting topic.

You know I talk a lot about what is needed to make an intercultural relationship work, it is one of my passions because I see so many Farang men who have a Thai girlfriend and then decide to marry her and they end up in all sorts of problems due to a lack of understanding of cultures. This is from both sides and is largely what this website is about because it makes me sad when I hear the horror stories about Thai girlfriends and Thai wives and their Farang husbands.

For example recently I read about 2 stories of Farang trying to commit suicide because of their Thai wife leaving them, one was a Swedish man and one was an Australian man and both of these incidents happened in Thailand.

I also found out some interesting statistics that show marriages between Thai and Farang are rising at about 10% every year and have been for the past 10 or 15 years in fact. This is positive news I think, even though the statistics also show that about 6% of divorces are intercultural marriages.

The statistics for divorce worldwide are quite shocking really with the US at nearly 50% divorce rate for all marriages. Thailand at this stage is down the list at around 6% but………we have to be careful because this statistic is only for registered marriages and many Thai marriages are not registered at a district office…something I will talk more about in future post.

As I have said before I believe the divorce rates between Thai and Farang can be helped by having a better understanding between our cultures and taking more preventative approaches, something which I really hope this website and my service can help with.

So remember if you are considering having a Thai wife then try to get a good understanding first of how the cultural difference will affect the relationship, keep coming to this website for more information and tips and celebrate your differences.